I had a nice little box arrive from Shift Happens in the US, containing something to add that little extra evil to the truck.
It's a pewter knob handcrafted by Kaval, who done a great job in the design, and the final finish. Using a Lokar adapter kit, this was a snap to install and maintain the shift mechanism of the Lokar floor shifter.
While a majority of my evenings last week, plus a fair chunk of this weekend was spent painting inside the house, I did get time in the shed to do more of work on the seat frame.
I welded in the final part, the passenger side seat belt latch mount, then got stuck in with the grinder to clean up the welds, strip off any last paint and surface rust, then gave it a few coats of chassis black and left it to dry.
I then completed the two seat belt retractor mounts, and gave them the same prep and paint as the seat frame.
After fucking about with wiring for so long, I got out my welder and grinder and starting whipping up a frame for the BA Falcon bucket seats I've had sitting around yesterday, based on the original bench seat mounts and rails.
Despite the weather being a bit warmer today I managed to finished enough to have both bucket seats in the truck, and most of the drivers side seat belt setup finished. I've got only got to finish the passenger side seat belt arrangement and neaten up and paint the frame.
I spent a fair amount of time getting the blind nuts welded within the RHS tube to allow the frame to bolt onto the original mounts, then the other tricky part was making sure the seats were aligned properly.
The beauty of this setup is that I can refit the bench seat at any time with only 4 bolts. The challenge will be creating a centre console that can suit both the bench seat and bucket seats (with an extra piece) but still looks decent.
Much of time in the shed lately has been spent on re-wiring the truck. The primary goal was the relocate the both left and right front lighting loom segments, as well as the redundant starter solenoid and the associated wiring, as well as the wiring for the twin-thermo fans I installed so that I could fron the front sheet metal tubs to the quarter panels. I also wanted to clean up some other wiring that was messy, bad or just plain useless.
I rerouted and reconnected much of the LPG wiring, including the electric lock-off, fuel gauge and primer switch.
I also refactored the wiring I did behind the dash for the gauges, making it all much neater and in the process removing more redundant elements.
Today I finished it all off, and tested all the various systems without any dramas, except for a loose fuse in the airbag controller whch had me worried I'd messed something up for a few mins. By the end I seemed to have removed a lot of extraneous wiring from all over the place, loads of old insulation tape and plenty of old connecters
I'm pretty happy with the outcome, as all the new connections were soldered and covered with heatshrink before taping up again. Importantly, my front quarter panels are wire free!
Happy day, after months and months of planning, dreaming, measuring I finally had the billet wheels for the truck in my hands on Friday. It's been a bit of a journey, thus the lack of updates.
I put in the order with Zak at Boze Alloys back in October and he made the process very easy. Thanks also to David at McHugh and Eastwood in North Geelong who handled the freight for me. As the wheels were in transmit, I put an order in for my tyres at Associated Cold Tread Tyres in North Geelong. Toyo are the only manufacturer who could make the size and load rating requirements for my rear tyres, so I went with the Proxes ST-II, although I have to wait until next year for the front tyres.
It all came together when I picked up the wheels, dropped them off to have tyres fitted (used the tyres from a pair of my BMW wheels on the fronts for now.) I also went back to Hoppers to grab my bench seat, as I've not progressed the bucket seat frame and I'm not undecided which way I want to go with the seating.
Fitting the rear wheels wasn't as straight forward as I'd expected. The BMW wheels with the 255 wide tyres were already a squeeze to fit between the tub arch and the wheel hub assembly, and no matter what I tried the wider wheels and tyres didn't want to go in nicely. In the end, I had to unbolt the tub from the chassis, and using the beams in my sheds roof and some ratchet straps, pulled each side up enough to squueze the wheels in. I was pondering a tilt-tub at some stage, I might have to make that a priority now!
Having the exhaust fitted and lacking a hoist combined to make the process slower and more tedious than it should have been, so it wasn't until this morning I got the fronts fitted (without dramas) and then reinstalled the bench seat.The floor shift works fine with the bench seat fitted, thus making the decision about what I do with the seating a little more difficult.
I deliberately ordered the front wheels with less offset than the BMW runners I was rolling on, as they were tucking in a little more than I liked. The front now rub on the guards when the truck is fuly dropped and my turning circle - even with the truck at full height - is considerably reduced. I expected the guards would need some work when I got around to putting the front tubs in, so that should sort it all out. I have already started re-routing wiring away from the guards, and have the LHS front now running through the chassis rail.
I'm very happy with the end result, looks even better than the ultra-dodgy photoshop I did 12 months ago when I committed to this style of wheel.
One of the other reason for the lack of updates and progress has been another project I've been working on for my step-son Max. I finally finished his rather large outdoor half-pipe which he's most pleased with. This means I get back onto the truck, and with 3 weeks over Xmas I'm expecting to get a lot of the interior done. I've got the Geelong All Ford Day in Feb as a target to have it fully streetable, hopefully with engineering completed.
PS. Thanks FedEx for charging me import duty on US-made goods when you know perfectly well we have a Free Trade Agreement in place. At least they arrived in good order and on time.
The truck is off the jack stands and back on all four wheels again. I ordered some billet spacers, which after bolting on allowed me to reinstall the rear shocks and put the BMW wheels back on with enough clearance. Drivable again!
I'm thinking about putting the bucket seat frames on hold, and getting the bench seat back in just to get things moving a bit quicker. I can always get the buckets in later when I get the rest of the interior sorted out. That way I get someone to check out the power steering, get the brakes checked out and get the front tubs in!
...but not a lot more. The rear of the effy is on jack stands, and the BMW wheels are off, and I've put the rear shocks and the bump stops back in. I'm missing a few nuts and washers to fasten it all up again, so it'll stay on the stands for a bit.
I've also done a little more on the seat frame, ensuring the right seat position and tack welding in a few supports to bolt up to the old seat belt anchors.
No luck with the power steering pump, as the Jag flow valve setup looks no different to the current pump, so I'll talk to someone who knows what they're doing.
Best of all though, the billet wheels are finally ordered!
Another gap between updates, but to be honest progress has been a little slow as it's all my own now. I've been working on the frame to fit the bucket seats, and had to make modifications after discussions with my engineer. Hope to make more progress on that this weekend.
I also bought a power steering pump pulled from an XJ6 in the hope of curing my over-sensitive steering. I've already yanked the stock one, which is a Saginaw-style pump, as is the Jaguar unit, but I believe they run a lower pressure Of course, there's a special tool for getting the pulleys off these bloody things so I've got a small bundle of goodies coming from Summit including the right tool - loving the AUD vs USD rates at the moment!
Speaking of spending more USD, after a long wait I'm almost ready to order the billet wheels. I've been measuring, and re-measuring to ensure I get the right width, backspacing, hub widths, room for calipers, etc.
As expected, the truck made it's way home. It came back on the back of a flat bed, not yet fully drivable. One of the key problems is the BMW X5 wheels have very high positive offset, therefore the rear shocks had to be temporarily removed to get them to fit on the rear, and they only miss the four-link by a few mm. I haven't driven it for so long a little more of a wait wasn't going to be a problem.
I've spent the weekend in the shed, splitting my time between the truck and finishing my workbench that I've been welding up. After putting the bumpers back on (still need adjusting 'cos they're not straight!), most of the time on the truck has been messing with wiring again, getting the gauges back in and working and connecting up the manual steering column's 3 looms to mate up with some of the 'customisations' previous owners had made when the old column shift column was in. With the air bag height controller and the gear shift indicator all wired up there's a lot more spaghetti to deal with.
Once I got most of it working again, I took the truck for a quick run around the block to see how everything went. Without the shocks, the rear end is a little bouncy but the front seems quite good - hard to tell overall just yet. One thing I do need to look into is the steering, it's very sensitive, and the slightest movement on the steering wheel produces a fair bit of turn in comparison with no slack at all.
I was a little disappointed with the brake performance given it's got front and rear upgrades. There must be an issue somewhere, but it did come from a place specialise in brakes though, so I'll be having a word with them on that. Exhaust is fantastic, and I'm going to have to quiten it down a bit when I go back to have it signed off by the engineer.
The to do list still has quite a few things on it though, so better get stuck into it.
Barring any foreseen issues (and haven't I had a few of those...) the truck is back in my shed next Thursday!!